His point was that even though you only buff 7 of the 13 ticks, you buff 14/20 of shadowflame's total damage ...

I am aware of this.

Buffing 14/20ths of Shadowflame's damage by 2/3rds with Meta, does not cause a spell to more than triple it's output, although you might just about double it. However, the 4% base Teye suggested as a baseline from parses is actually flawed before you start because many players will be using this "trick" without even being aware of it simply to ensure HoG isn't left on cooldown during Meta.

AFAIK the gain is simple to calculate ... You say that 14/20 ticks are empowered by meta, ok. While in caster form your base ticks D was multiplied by (1+0.01 * mastery%) and while in meta form, your base ticks D was multiplied by (1+0.03 * mastery%).

On that graph, you can see that at 70% mastery the overall HoG gain is 57% for example. Then if my shadowflame is about 6% of my overall dps as shown on a WOL (while never using the trick) then using the trick fully would only increase my overall damage by 3.42%.

So ok, it's an increase, but hey .... that's far from "3 times as much".

With the hand of gul'dan weaving if you have your 4set and you have 28sec until dark soul comes off cd, i will only use one shadowflame for the extra fury, so by the time dark soul is up i have 2 charges and my gul'dan gets a huge buff from the weaving. ^-^

Buffing 14/20ths of Shadowflame's damage by 2/3rds with Meta, does not cause a spell to more than triple it's output, although you might just about double it. However, the 4% base Teye suggested as a baseline from parses is actually flawed before you start because many players will be using this "trick" without even being aware of it simply to ensure HoG isn't left on cooldown during Meta.

Why you focused on one guys statement who said its 3x more dmg ? You said its minor dps gain - only 3x more would make it false ? Even if its "only 3,42%" its still a lot. Its prolly more than our new 2p and 4p bonus together.

Why you focused on one guys statement who said its 3x more dmg ? You said its minor dps gain - only 3x more would make it false ? Even if its "only 3,42%" its still a lot. Its prolly more than our new 2p and 4p bonus together.

Because the foundation of his argument about stat weightings is based on a gross overexaggeration; that makes his argument incredibly questionable, especially when he makes further ill informed statements about how many ticks you'll actually buff.

From my tests at HC sha wipes Iam getting more damage from Imp than Felguard, maybe because FG have to run all the way to the boss, but even in tank&spank conditions what would be the best service pet?

From my tests at HC sha wipes Iam getting more damage from Imp than Felguard, maybe because FG have to run all the way to the boss, but even in tank&spank conditions what would be the best service pet?

I'll look into it more soon, but on sha I just started running behind the boss whenever it was time to use GoServ because of how insane the run time could be.

I have been pondering casting Doom in AoE situations. I thought I would add my thoughts to this thread and hopefully get some feedback from people more skilled in Demonology than I. The guideline turns out to be very simple. The maths follow to explain my reasoning.

Suggestion for best practice:
Cast Doom when:
If the number of mobs is fewer than six, and the mobs will live longer than 2 ticks
If there are exactly six mobs, and your crit is higher than 20%
If the number of mobs is more than six and they will live longer than 3 ticks

Doom is an interesting beast. It costs 60 fury to cast it, but you can statistically say it costs (60 - 50*nTicks*critRate), since for each tick of doom, there is a chance of a crit, which spawns an imp which will give you 50 demonic fury over time. It also does approximately about half the damage of the amount of touch of chaos (which costs 40 fury). Void ray (also 40 fury) does about 1/3 of the damage of touch of chaos (ToC). We can use the damage of ToC as a measuring stick.

Also, wild imps deal damage in Firebolts, which do about as much as 1/4 of a ToC. Since they cast 10 of them, they do about 2.5 ToC of damage when they spawn, so the expected imp damage from a doom is (2.5*ToCDamage*nTicks*critRate). To break this down, with 20% crit that gives:

1Tick: 0.5 ToC
2Ticks: 1.0 ToC
3Ticks: 1.5 ToC
4Ticks: 2.0 ToC

So if you have 2 targets, you will want to cast Touch of Chaos if they will die before two ticks (about 30 sec) of Doom since 1 doom tick is worth about 1 ToC (0.5 from tick damage and 0.5 from expected wild imp damage). If they will last 2 ticks, ToC and Doom do the same base damage, but wild imps will give an expected 1 more ToC of damage, so cast Doom because one Doom is worth 2 ToC.

If you have 3 targets, casting void ray and cycling touch of chaos is about sixes, but you might as well use void ray because you don't have to worry about targeting (for keeping Corruption rolling). You don't want to cast Touch of Chaos anymore, but the same maths from before apply, but now with Void Ray. Cast Doom if the add will live through two ticks.

As the numbers of adds increase, the pattern doesn't change much. When you have 6 adds that will last about 1 minute each, Doom has the same damage per cast time as a Void Ray spam, but it's cheaper (thanks to wild imp procs). But with six adds, demonic fury becomes an abundant resource from AoE abilities, so cost isn't as important anymore. The wild imps damage ensures it is worth casting Doom. But the value of two ticks of doom is about 2 ToC casts; this is the same as casting Void Ray on the six mobs. Because there is no guarantee of imps, you probably don't want to cast Doom unless the add will last for three ticks. Theoretically, adding more adds to the mix should make Doom less valuable, but since Doom isn't victim to the Area Damage Cap for AoE abilities (like Void Ray), it will always be worth casting if you can get three ticks out of it.

There is a catch in all this. For the wild imps to matter, you need to have a target to attack. As a boss is about to die, the extra damage from wild imps may not pan out. It takes time to get all those firebolts cast. In most situations, there will be another mob to kill, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Another thing to note is that this also means that Doom scales non-linearly for demonology warlocks with crit because you get to double-dip. Doom can crit (making it hit harder) but it also gives imp procs (with spells which also benefit from crit.) Consequently, the higher your crit rate, the higher the benefits of stacking more of it. Consequently, as the expansion progresses and stats inflate, demonology warlocks may start to favor crit more.

Appendix: Maths for value based on amount of crit
The amount of damage done by a spell based on crit is (1+critRate). If we let ToCBase be the base damage of touch of chaos without crits, the damage of Touch of Chaos with 20% crit is (1+0.2)*ToCBase. So the value of Doom based on ToCBase is 2*ToC+(2.5*ToC*nTicks*CritRate).

I have been pondering casting Doom in AoE situations. I thought I would add my thoughts to this thread and hopefully get some feedback from people more skilled in Demonology than I. The guideline turns out to be very simple. The maths follow to explain my reasoning.

Suggestion for best practice:
Cast Doom when:
If the number of mobs is fewer than six, and the mobs will live longer than 2 ticks
If there are exactly six mobs, and your crit is higher than 20%
If the number of mobs is more than six and they will live longer than 3 ticks

Doom is an interesting beast. It costs 60 fury to cast it, but you can statistically say it costs (60 - 50*nTicks*critRate), since for each tick of doom, there is a chance of a crit, which spawns an imp which will give you 50 demonic fury over time. It also does approximately about half the damage of the amount of touch of chaos (which costs 40 fury). Void ray (also 40 fury) does about 1/3 of the damage of touch of chaos (ToC). We can use the damage of ToC as a measuring stick.

Also, wild imps deal damage in Firebolts, which do about as much as 1/4 of a ToC. Since they cast 10 of them, they do about 2.5 ToC of damage when they spawn, so the expected imp damage from a doom is (2.5*ToCDamage*nTicks*critRate). To break this down, with 20% crit that gives:

1Tick: 0.5 ToC
2Ticks: 1.0 ToC
3Ticks: 1.5 ToC
4Ticks: 2.0 ToC

So if you have 2 targets, you will want to cast Touch of Chaos if they will die before two ticks (about 30 sec) of Doom since 1 doom tick is worth about 1 ToC (0.5 from tick damage and 0.5 from expected wild imp damage). If they will last 2 ticks, ToC and Doom do the same base damage, but wild imps will give an expected 1 more ToC of damage, so cast Doom because one Doom is worth 2 ToC.

If you have 3 targets, casting void ray and cycling touch of chaos is about sixes, but you might as well use void ray because you don't have to worry about targeting (for keeping Corruption rolling). You don't want to cast Touch of Chaos anymore, but the same maths from before apply, but now with Void Ray. Cast Doom if the add will live through two ticks.

As the numbers of adds increase, the pattern doesn't change much. When you have 6 adds that will last about 1 minute each, Doom has the same damage per cast time as a Void Ray spam, but it's cheaper (thanks to wild imp procs). But with six adds, demonic fury becomes an abundant resource from AoE abilities, so cost isn't as important anymore. The wild imps damage ensures it is worth casting Doom. But the value of two ticks of doom is about 2 ToC casts; this is the same as casting Void Ray on the six mobs. Because there is no guarantee of imps, you probably don't want to cast Doom unless the add will last for three ticks. Theoretically, adding more adds to the mix should make Doom less valuable, but since Doom isn't victim to the Area Damage Cap for AoE abilities (like Void Ray), it will always be worth casting if you can get three ticks out of it.

There is a catch in all this. For the wild imps to matter, you need to have a target to attack. As a boss is about to die, the extra damage from wild imps may not pan out. It takes time to get all those firebolts cast. In most situations, there will be another mob to kill, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Another thing to note is that this also means that Doom scales non-linearly for demonology warlocks with crit because you get to double-dip. Doom can crit (making it hit harder) but it also gives imp procs (with spells which also benefit from crit.) Consequently, the higher your crit rate, the higher the benefits of stacking more of it. Consequently, as the expansion progresses and stats inflate, demonology warlocks may start to favor crit more.

Appendix: Maths for value based on amount of crit
The amount of damage done by a spell based on crit is (1+critRate). If we let ToCBase be the base damage of touch of chaos without crits, the damage of Touch of Chaos with 20% crit is (1+0.2)*ToCBase. So the value of Doom based on ToCBase is 2*ToC+(2.5*ToC*nTicks*CritRate).

Basically he explains
- that crit is double-dipping into doom
- that doom's damage per fury cost is double dipping from the mob's time-to-die
- why there's a target.time_to_die>=30 in doom's line in simcraft action priority list
- when we should switch from ToC to VR when considering add count and time-to-die

Question concerning Demo mechanics-

Hi warlock forums. Normally I just read, but I decided to actually make an account and post because I've got a question I am hoping someone can answer.

Normally I play affliction for PVE, and Destro for PVP. I've not spent a lot of time with the MoP iteration of Demo, but my raid leader is wanting me to play it for heroic sha of fear progression, as it's damage on the dread spawns is better than affliction, and we have slows under control and don't need me soulburning exhaustion.

I've heard about using meta to significantly boost the damage of the shadowflame dot from HoG, but I am not sure how to execute this properly. I realize this is a dumb question, but I'd rather ask and make sure I have things right so I can get plenty of practice in before our next raid night. Am I correct in assuming that you cast HoG and then pop into meta during the spell's travel time?

If someone could spare five minutes and break down the optimal way to utilize HoG, I would really, really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

That's basically it yeah. Drop first HoG, throw a couple of filler spells, drop the second, pop Meta before that second one lands so that when it does just before the final tick of the first, your double stack will gain the Meta bonus.